


Whoever You Are, Wherever You've Come From (This Is Where You Belong)

by scribblybits



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coincides with early season 2, Identity Issues, Injury Recovery, Jemma comes back, Leo Fitz Feels, M/M, Mac joins SHIELD, Pining, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Doubt, Speech Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:58:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2592659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblybits/pseuds/scribblybits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alphonso Mackenzie isn't sure that he made the right decision joining a clandestine government agency headquartered in an old warehouse on the outskirts of town. Not until he meets Leo Fitz, that is. And while fixing things has always come pretty easily to Mac, one thing is clear to him from his very first day at The Playground: No matter what he's been through, and no matter what his teammates might believe, Leo Fitz isn't broken. </p><p>Leo Fitz is perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whoever You Are, Wherever You've Come From (This Is Where You Belong)

At first, Mac wasn't sure he'd come to the right place. For a moment, he even wished he hadn't followed Director Coulson's instructions to burn the cocktail napkin on which he'd scribbled the address -- if he'd misremembered it, it was going to be a long, humiliating bus ride back to the Y.

Of course, if he'd remembered it accurately, that might not be a whole hell of a lot better. Taking a job at a clandestine government agency that may or may not actually, technically exist was undeniably the biggest gamble he'd made with his career since pretty much ever. And depending on which cable news station you watched, this agency in particular was somehow overrun with either Nazis, aliens, or alien Nazis (between New York and D.C., it had been a weird couple of years).

Still, beggars couldn't be choosers, and since the bank foreclosed on his garage, Mac's options were running out. So when he came across some suit and his broken-down '62 Corvette on the side of the interstate, and when he not only got his ride back up and running, but made a few improvements to the hovering capabilities while he was at it, and when the owner said he had a very lucrative job offer to extend to him...well, what choice did he have but to at least give it a look? (After all, he'd worked on planes and he'd worked on cars, but never _flying cars_.)

So there he was, oversized duffel slung over his shoulder and battered old tool box in his hand, ringing the bell to an abandoned-looking warehouse so deep in the city's former industrial district that it had taken a two-hour bus ride and a good mile or two on foot just to get there.

No answer.

This couldn't be the right place.

With a curse under his breath, he'd just started to turn around and head back the way he'd come when the rickety-looking garage door in front of him slowly creaked open, and a dark-haired woman in some kind of leather motorcycle gear stepped out of the shadows, skeptically eying him up and down.

Boy, if looks could kill.

“Alphonso Mackenzie, ma'am,” he said with a polite smile, just the way his grandmother had always told him to. “Here for Director Phil Coulson.”

She narrowed her eyes a bit, but didn't betray a single emotion, positive or otherwise. “Were you followed here?”

Not a question he was used to being asked, but okay. “No ma'am, nobody knows I was coming here today.”

The woman seemed to consider for a moment whether or not he was telling the truth. “You fit the profile. Director Coulson sends his regards. Come on in.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And Mackenzie?”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“It would be in your best interest to stop addressing me as ma'am.”

He gulped and nodded. “Yes, miss...”

“Agent May will do just fine. Now follow me.”

She turned and disappeared inside. Mac followed, ducking beneath the garage door that was already closing behind her.

So much for nailing the first impression.

“The director is out for the week on official business,” she told Mac over her shoulder, “which means I have a full plate without supervising any icebreakers. One of our junior agents will be showing you around our facility and to your living quarters. Understood?”

“Yes, ma -- Agent May.” The woman couldn't have been half his size, but he still felt as though he was racing to keep up with her pace, trying his best to peer through every window and open door they passed all the while. 

He'd never seen anything like this place -- exposed brick and duct work, scientists bustling about in lab coats, technology he'd only seen in the sci-fi movies he always caught on TV at 2 am -- it was like someone had moved Area 51 into an industrial loft.

So this was where his taxes went.

“Still with me, Mackenzie?”

He adjusted the duffel strap on his shoulder and sprung forward to catch up. “Yes! Yes, I am.”

“Good. This is our kitchen area,” she said, rounding a corner. “You'll find that some of your fellow agents spend more time in here than others.”

Before he had time to savor the unusual sensation of being called an “agent,” he followed her into the kitchen and nearly dropped his bag where he stood out of pure shock.

The room was practically as big as his most recent apartment -- and certainly better-appointed. Stainless everything, an eight-burner range, two sets of twin ovens, two refrigerators, and more countertop appliances than a home-and-garden show.

“You guys must have a lot of mouths to feed around here,” he said with a laugh.

“A lot is an understatement,” she replied. “And some of them are more demanding than you'd expect.”

Almost on cue, one of the refrigerator doors closed, revealing a younger woman whose arms were loaded up with an entire deli's worth of cold cuts, condiment jars, bags of different sliced cheeses, tomatoes, and a head of lettuce. She looked over at the two of them with a wide-eyed start and froze in place. A guilty smile crept across her face, despite the fact that her mouth was apparently stuffed full of turkey, which dangled out between her lips.

“Maeh! Thith hem?” she sputtered, a piece of turkey dropping out of her mouth and hitting the tiled floor with a flaccid splat. With a considerable amount of effort, she swallowed. “Bleh! Sorry! May, is this him? Our mechanic?”

“Mackenzie, meet Agent Skye. Skye, this is Alphonso Mackenzie, our new head mechanic” said May without taking her steely gaze off the younger woman. Mac stifled a grin -- he had a feeling that this wasn't the first time Skye had been caught in a compromising position, nor was it the first time that she simply didn't care.

He hiked up the strap on his shoulder and reached out with his free hand as Skye dumped the contents of her full arms onto the nearest counter. “You can call me Mac,” he said with a warm smile.

“Oooh,” she replied, shaking his hand and raising her eyebrows at May. “We can call him Mac, he says.”

May's humorless expression didn't falter. “I'll leave you two to it,” she added, turning back toward Mac. “Welcome aboard...Mac.”

“You'll have to forgive her,” said Skye once May cleared the room. “She comes on a little strong sometimes. Just such a people person, you know? Wants to be everyone's best buddy right away, right?”

Mac wasn't sure whether it was okay to laugh, so he just smiled back at her.

“Well, I don't know if -- I mean --”

“Oh my god, wait, that's adorable,” she said, reaching out (and considerably higher) to put a hand on each of his shoulders. “I mean, not in a bad way, it's just, you're probably the biggest human being I've ever seen in my life. You're bigger than our life-size cardboard cutout of Thor, even. I'm gonna make you stand next to it later to check. You don't have to be scared of us! We're not scary! Are we scary? May can be scary.”

Mac let out a nervous laugh and allowed some of his tension to dissipate. He liked this girl already. “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry, I'm just a little --”

“Nervous? Yeah, that's okay. The recruiting process around these parts can do that to a guy. Or girl. I only started working here after being abducted out of my van and locked in an interrogation chamber for nine hours. It's cool.”

Before he could ask for details, she was reaching for the strap to his duffel bag. 

“But hey, let me get that and we'll --”

“Oh no, you might not want to --”

Too late. The bag dropped to the floor with an impressive thud, taking her down with it. She looked up at him from where she was splayed out on the kitchen floor, next to the sad slice of turkey she'd dropped. “Right. Well, maybe you take your own bag and I'll show you to your living quarters, and then we can start the grand tour, right?”

He reached down and helped her up, laughing. Her hand was like a kitten's paw in his massive palm. “Sounds like a plan. It's nice to meet you, Skye.”

*

His duffel and his tool box deposited safely in his bunk -- which actually appeared to be two bunks, annexed to accommodate his enormous frame -- Mac spent the rest of the afternoon following Skye around The Playground, which was considerably bigger than the derelict warehouse it appeared to be from the outside (and just as packed with goodies as the name implied). 

Apparently SHIELD had been building catacombs beneath the warehouse for years, which now housed storeroom after storeroom lined with wooden crates, a firing range, a fully-equipped fitness center and sparring facility, a home theater (they don't go out on the town much, Skye warned), and a trauma center that he certainly hoped he would never need.

“What's through these,” he asked, pointing out a series of doors labeled Vault A, B, C, and so on.

“Garbage,” she said. “Nothing that ever needs to see the light of day, believe me. Now come on, rest of the team's probably above terra firma right now,” she added as they climbed the stairs back up to the main level. “During daylight hours, it's always kind of nice to stay in the parts of headquarters that have, you know, windows.”

As predicted, soon Mac was being inundated with more names and faces than he was quite prepared to remember, but he resolved to give it his best shot -- if he could look at an engine and accurately rattle off every one of its parts down to the bolt, he could handle remembering his new coworkers. His fellow _agents_. Bobbi, the blonde with the batons. Koenig, who _almost_ hesitated to issue him a lanyard. Soon he'd rubbed elbows with every last science officer, engineer, junior mechanic, field agent, mercenary, weapons expert, and so on -- by the end of the afternoon, he was on a first name basis with everyone in the place, all the way down to Raoul, the garbage collector.

Almost everyone, that is.

As Skye led him past what seemed like the fifth laboratory on the main floor alone, Mac noticed it was empty, save for a solitary figure huddled over a workbench in the back. 

He looked young, but serious. Sad, even. He was mumbling something to himself, or maybe there was someone else in the room that Mac just couldn't see from where he was, and he was rubbing his shoulder like it pained him something fierce. He didn't have quite the look of someone who'd just lost a fight -- even a guy as big as Mac knew that losing at least brought a certain kind of relief that an ordeal was over with. The curly-haired fella in the plaid Oxford shirt and the open cardigan looked more like he was in the middle of a losing fight -- like someone sliding down a hill, trying desperately to find a handhold and failing. 

“Skye,” he said in a lowered voice, leaning forward, “Who's he? The worried-looking guy in there? Is he alright?” He nodded his head in the direction of the window to the lab.

Skye looked through the window and considered the man inside. “Oh, there he is. Okay, let me explain real quick. Here, step over here for a second.”

She stepped back along the wall a few feet, away from the window, and Mac followed suit. Whatever she had to tell him, she didn't want the other guy to see them talking.

“That's Fitz,” she said softly. Well, Leo Fitz, but we all just call him Fitz.”

“Okay, and what does Fitz do?”

“Well...I mean, first of all, I want to make sure you know that Fitz is _smart_. Like, one of the two biggest geniuses I know. But he can't...he doesn't always come across that way. At first.”

“I don't follow.”

“Okay, well...look, this isn't my story to tell. But Fitz is a scientist. An engineer, actually -- an _amazing_ one. A while back, though, a mission went south. Fitz hasn't been the same since then. He's...I feel bad, saying this, but he's a little broken.”

Mac grimaced. “People don't break.”

“Alright, poor choice of words, maybe, but I assure you, wires _do_ get crossed. Things short out. And Fitz just...he hasn't been _Fitz_ for some time. So just keep that in mind, in here. If he seems a little off, just try to be patient, okay? He might not want to look at your or talk to you, because he gets embarrassed. But he really is an amazing guy.”

She walked back past the window and through the door to the lab. Mac followed -- Fitz didn't look up at them, though. He didn't seem to even notice them come in at all, not even when Skye was within inches of him.

“Fitz? Fitz...hey, how's it going?” She reached out slowly to touch him on the shoulder and he gently perked up, as though awoken from a light nap.

“Skye, yes, hi. I ahh...it's just, I'm trying to...with the, you see --”

Mac looked down at the schematics in front of Fitz. The blueprints looked like the jet he'd seen in the hangar, but the notes and equations scattered across the workstation seemed like gibberish. After what Skye had told him outside, he wondered for a moment if they were.

“You know what, Fitz, it's okay,” she interrupted. “You don't have to explain. I'm just popping in to --”

“Hold on,” Mac said, stopping her. “Give him a chance to finish.” Skye looked back at him not irritated, but a bit sad, as though Mac's suggestion was somehow naïve. “Alphonso Mackenzie,” he said, extending his enormous hand to shake with Fitz. “But please, call me Mac. I hear you're a pretty smart guy, Fitz. I'd love to hear about what you're working on.”

Fitz looked quizzically at Mac's hand as he shook it, allowing his gaze to trail slowly up the arm until their eyes met. He looked surprised -- not just at Mac's size, which surprised most everyone, but at his suggestion. Mac guessed that Fitz's fellow agents, however well-meaning, spent more time these days cutting him off than giving him space to think.

“Right, Mac, it's ahhh...it's ahhh...very...yes,” he said, finally letting go of his hand. “Nice to meet you. I'm working on these...for the plane, you see.” He shuffled the papers on his desk with one hand while gesticulating with the other, as if the words he needed were swimming all around him, moving too quickly for him to pluck them out of the air. “For the Bus --”

“That's the plane,” Skye interrupted. Mac closed his eyes and nodded her direction, politely signaling that Fitz was making himself understood without her help. 

“Yes, it's the plane,” Fitz added. “And it needs...when you can't see it.” He waved his free hand in a circle in the air.

“Invisibility? Stealth? Cloaking?” asked Mac.

“Yes! Cloaking. I'm working on cloaking for the plane. Thank you. It's ahhh...it's...”

Fitz squeezed his eyes shut. Skye opened her mouth to finish his sentence, but Mac gave her a gentle touch on the elbow and an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

“...it's ahhh...complicated,” Fitz said with a sigh of relief. “It's complicated science.”

Mac smiled at him. “Well, good luck, Fitz. You ever want an extra set of eyes, I'm not so bad with mechanics myself, and I'll be around, alright?”

“Yeah, I'll...I'll ahhh, keep that in mind,” he replied, eying Mac up and down one last time before sitting back down at his desk. “I'll see you...see you...when it's here, sort of?”

“Around. I'll see you around, too,” he added, rapping twice on the desktop and turning with Skye to leave the empty lab.

“Okay,” she said as soon as the door clicked shut behind them, “that may not have seemed like much? But Fitz doesn't really _talk_ to people these days. Not even his friends. Most of the time, you're lucky to get him to make eye contact, let alone open his mouth. You're like, the Fitz Whisperer.”

“You said it yourself,” he replied with a shrug, “the guy's smart.”

“Lots of smart people in the world, Mac, doesn't mean they're always warm and fuzzy. Ever met Tony Stark? (I mean, _I_ haven't, but a girl hears things...)”

“No, I know, but...he's smart. Obviously, just look at what he's working on in there, and the guy's what, in his mid-twenties? So he's got some trouble focusing right now, he can't access the information in his brain quite as fast as he used to, maybe.”

“Yeah, but he closes off any time we try to help him. Last time I tried to help him figure out the word he was looking for, he looked at me like I'd kicked his puppy.”

“Are you sure you're trying to help him? Or are you trying to make his situation easier for _you_ guys to deal with?

Skye shot him an offended look.

“Not what I meant,” he said. “I only mean that what feels like helping to _you_ might feel like _babying_ to him. It's like, my grandmother was one of the toughest people I ever knew. Woman marched on Washington. Got the hose and the dogs turned on her. Didn't take shit from anyone, period. But she got too old to walk on her own, so it was the wheelchair for her. And you know what she hated most about that thing?”

Skye shook her head.

“She hated that it was the only thing people saw when they looked at her, and especially that they thought it made her weak. I swear,” he said with a chuckle, “if grandma was trying to get something off the shelf and you gave it to her without being asked, you got a whack from a wooden ruler. Right hand to god, she kept one with her all the damn time.”

“Even if you were just trying to help?”

“ _Especially_ if you were just trying to help. 'If I needed you to get that for me,' she'd say, 'I'd have asked you for it.' Things like that, or opening doors, or even just going down the sidewalk, they didn't come as easy to her. That didn't bother her nearly as much as people assuming she couldn't still do them on her own.”

“So you're comparing Fitz to Grandma Mackenzie?”

“I'm saying people don't break. They change, but they don't break. You've just gotta know how to tell when they're asking you for help, and to not step all over them when they're not.”

“Sage words from our new teammate. I like it.”

Mac rolled his eyes and shrugged. “I have my moments.”

“Well, let's hope so. Tomorrow they're gonna put you to work,” Skye said, clapping him on the back. “So for right now, let's go get drunk. _I_ know where Koenig hides the good stuff.”

“I like the way you do things around here already,” he said with a laugh, taking one last look over his shoulder and through the window to the near-empty lab.

 

***

After a few weeks, Mac felt right at home in the warehouse on the outskirts of town. Which was good, because the team rarely needed him to accompany them on missions.

He mostly stayed behind, working on maintaining and improving their small fleet of vehicles between outings and performing whatever odd repairs they required immediately after.

And “odd” was an understatement, sometimes. 

A motorcycle that was half melted by a gifted with blazing hot hands. A Humvee with laser beam damage to the doors and axles. A Jeep with its engine corroded by some kind of iridescent blue goo.

“The hell are you guys dealing with out there,” he asked, “Kaiju?”

“Sometimes, I think that'd actually be preferable,” said Skye, peeling off a torn and frayed tactical jacket. “At least they're easy to find.”

Mac could tell she was frustrated. He'd spent weeks getting caught up to speed on SHIELD, Hydra, and everything in between, and while he usually held down the fort back at home, he could tell when the team had been shaken up by a particularly fruitless mission. He'd even had to say goodbye to Bobbi, who was going undercover for who knows how long -- though she promised she'd be back for one of his martinis, which were quickly becoming the stuff of legend around The Playground.

For him, the job was always simple -- relatively speaking, anyway. Even when the job was unusual, his role was always clear: fix the things that are broken. Easy enough -- he'd had a knack for fixing things ever since he was a kid performing repairs on his sister's Easy Bake Oven. Busted carburetor, no problem. Sticky landing gear, you got it. Hell, give him a handful of shop rags and his dad's old toolbox, and he'd spend the afternoon supercharging a weed whacker with a smile on his face. Nothing made him happier than the opportunity to work with his hands and to make something broken whole again.

Not until now, anyway. Suddenly, things had become a lot more complicated than just finding and replacing broken parts.

Mac didn't know the “old” Fitz that everyone talked about in hushed voices. He didn't know the details of what had happened all those months ago that left him so bashful, with that perpetual stutter. Took a bullet to the shoulder, he guessed, from the way he was always rubbing it with a pained look on his face.

Whatever it was that happened, though, it didn't matter. Because no matter what anyone else on the team said, Mac was increasingly sure about what he'd suspected on his very first day:

Leo Fitz did not need to be fixed, because Leo Fitz was not broken.

Leo Fitz was perfect.

And whatever frustrated helplessness Mac felt as a permanent fixture at HQ, it couldn't compare to what Fitz seemed to be going through.

He was clearly more frustrated than anyone -- not just because of whatever he was dealing with, but because he'd clearly grown accustomed to fieldwork, which he never participated in anymore. Coulson insisted that it was because they needed to prevent Fitz and his intellect from being killed or captured, but while Fitz often struggled with words, his eyes said loud and clear that he knew it wasn't the truth.

Mac tried his best to keep him distracted anytime the rest of the team went out in the field. He could tell that the cloaking project wasn't going as quickly or as successfully as Fitz had hoped -- or had needed it to -- but that didn't stop him from sequestering himself in his lab for days at a time and poring over schematics and formulas. It wasn't healthy, Mac figured, and it wasn't getting him anywhere, so he made sure to barge in every so often with a beer in each hand and an Xbox mission that he desperately needed help on (even though he never _really_ needed the help).

Fitz didn't seem to mind -- it was probably a bit of a confidence boost, Mac figured, to go from constantly fumbling under pressure to being both needed and capable at something (even if it _was_ just leading a squadron of space marines across the galaxy). That, and he seemed to delight in giving Mac shit about his purported lack of skills.

“I'm surprised you're still bothering to play at all,” he said late one night while the team was out tracking down a gifted somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia. “You're not...ahhh, you're not...”

“Very good?” asked Mac with a chuckle.

“No, no you're not. I think I'd be better off saving the ahhh...saving the universe with...with...”

“What, with Skye or someone?”

“Not even. With a monkey, maybe?”

Mac doubled over laughing and reached out to give him a playful shove. “A _monkey_? Is that how this is gonna be, Turbo? You really think I'm that bad at this game, huh!”

“No, no, I ahhh...”

Mac raised his eyebrows at Fitz expectantly. Fitz glanced away from the screen back at him.

“I ahhh, I _know_ you're that bad at this game. Know it for a fact.” And still looking at him, he laughed. “It's proven science.”

With a mile-wide grin, Mac reached out with his bottle and Fitz met it with a clink.

“Well then,” Mac said, “it's a damn good thing I've got you.”

Before long, Fitz and Mac's late-night gaming sessions were becoming a regular thing when the rest of the team was away. Sometimes, Mac didn't even have to go fetch Fitz from whatever dark corner of the lab he was holed up in -- sometimes, it was the scientist who found him. He wasn't as quiet as he seemed at first, either. Some nights, the guy could go on for hours -- about SHIELD academy, his favorite old American TV shows, his ideas for new tech -- and maybe he stammered and needed help with the occasional word, but he showed interest in speaking his mind, and that's what Mac cared about the most. 

Other nights, he hardly made a peep at all, but as far as Mac was concerned, a smile or a laugh out of him was worth more than plenty of long conversations he'd had with other people. All he wanted was to give him what he needed, even when what he needed was silence.

*

Mac had been flat on his back under a Jeep Wrangler for a good hour or so, trying to find a way to permanently flush out the last of a swarm of Hydra-engineered nano-parasites, when he felt a tentative tap on his boot.

He ignored it, hoping that whoever it was would be impatient enough to go find someone else with more free time, but soon felt another, more forceful tap. With a sigh, he rolled himself out from beneath the undercarriage only to see Fitz standing overhead, looking down at greeting him with a sheepish wave.

“Fitz,” he said, pulling a faded red rag from his pocket and wiping his hands dry, if not clean. “What's up? Do you need something?”

“I do,” said Fitz. “I ahhh, I need you. That is, I, ahhh, I need your...when you assist?”

“Help?”

“Yes, thank you, I need your help. Can you...can you come with me? For a sec?”

“Of course,” he said, reaching out with his hand. “Help me up?”

Fitz reached out and wrapped his fingers around Mac's wrist, leaning back with all his weight to try to lift him up to his feet. “Yeah, no,” he said, letting go, “you're on your own, I think.”

Mac sprang to his feet with a laugh, kicked the creeper board back under the Jeep, and lightly patted the small of Fitz's back. “Alright, Turbo, why don't you show me what kind of trouble we're getting into today.”

“Well,” Fitz said as they walked down the corridor toward his lab, “I've been thinking about your problem with the...the ahhh, with the robots, the tiny...tiny?”

“The nano-parasites?”

“Yes, the nano-parasites! Thank you. I wanted to find a solution for them for you.”

“Well, that'd be pretty nice. Damn things have infected half our vehicles. Chewing 'em up like fleas from the inside out.”

“Exactly. And I thought, if I could find a way inside of them...ahhh, inside their...to change their...brains?”

“To reprogram them?”

“Yes. I thought, it might be possible to reprogram them. I mean, it is possible. I could have done this on my own in about five minutes, back before...”

“Hey, if you could do it then, you can do it now.”

“Well, anyway,” said Fitz. “I thought, a bot that size, they likely take their commands from an external source, like a radio wave, rather than an internal...internal...ahhh, intelligence. Artificial intelligence.”

“You're saying you could command them via...what, like a wifi signal?”

“In theory, yes. I've just, I've got a bit of a...a...a snag? A snag.”

He led Mac into the lab and took a seat at his computer, which was hardwired to the exposed circuit boards of a wireless router. Two other routers sat on the table next to it, rubber-banded together with their cases cracked and circuitry exposed, all wired into one another in a tangled mess of electrical tape and soldered metal.

“Admittedly, it's not my best work,” he said to Mac, who was eying up the arrangement with some suspicion, “but I'm going for efficiency, not ahhh...not...not looks.”

“Fair enough. So, where do I come in?”

“Well, it's all ready to go, I just...I just need you to, to ahhh...I need you to...to proof?”

“To check it? You want me to check your work?”

“Yes, that. Before I send the signal. I need...I need you to check my work. Make sure it's right.”

“Fitz, you know I can't do that. I know machinery, but this? This is a little outside my skill set. Why don't you ask Skye? Girl knows her way around computers.”

Fitz looked up at him, pleading with his eyes. “No, no, I don't...I don't need the old team to...to think...ahhh...to think I can't do this on my own. Please, Mac, just _look_ at it. Just look at...at my programming. Before I send the signal. Please. I...I _trust_ you.” Mac could see the frustrated, desperate tears welling up in his eyes.

“Look, Turbo, I'd love to help you, but this is _your_ baby. Do you _believe_ that you can do this?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you, or don't you?”

“I don't _know_!” he shouted. “I don't know if I can! I don't know if I can do anything anymore!”

Mac reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Fitz, I believe in you. And _I_ trust _you_. But that doesn't mean anything unless you believe in yourself, too.”

Fitz cast his gaze down at the ground between them and said nothing.

“You're the smartest guy I know. Smartest guy I ever met. If anyone in this building could do this thing and do it right, it's you.”

“You don't...you don't _know_ that.”

“You're right, I don't. But I believe it. Do you believe it?”

Fitz hesitated. “I want to.”

Mac crouched down to put himself in Fitz's line of sight. “Then prove it. Prove you can do this thing, Fitz.”

Fitz stared into his eyes for a few moments. “The thing is, even if it works, they'll ahhh...they'll die off in a week or two. They ahhh...their batteries...they won't last. But if I...if I, if I miscalculated, the results could be...ahhh...bad?”

“Dangerous?”

“Worse.”

“Catastrophic?”

“That one.”

“Well then,” Mac said, “may as well get it over with and see what happens. All you can do, at this point.” He stepped back, dug his hands into his pockets, and waited.

Fitz looked at him, waiting for a signal that he realized he wasn't going to get. He turned back to his computer, tapped in a few keystrokes, and hit Enter.

Nothing.

“Well,” Fitz said after a few moments, “worst case...ahhh...worst case scenario was that they would, ahhh, that they would become...ahhh...carnivorous. And there's no screaming, yet, so that's a good sign.”

“Wait, did you say carnivorous?”

Fitz let out a nervous laugh. “Well, really, the odds of _that_ were --”

Just then, a static-y voice came through on the walkie talkie clipped to Mac's belt. “Mac! Mac, you'd better get down to the garage, and fast!”

He and Fitz locked eyes for a split second and sprang for the door.

“Ahhh,” Fitz gasped, “I knew it! There was something in the...in the programming, I just...I didn't...”

“Don't worry, Turbo, we got this! Whatever it is, we got this!”

“I should...I should, ahhh, I should go shut off the signal!” He turned to run back to the lab, but Mac grabbed his hand and pulled him along.

“Better see what the problem is before we try any more experiments.”

They jogged down the ramp into the garage, where one of Mac's assistants -- the one who'd radioed him -- was waiting. “Mac, I heard some strange noises coming from that Jeep you were working on today, and I took a look and...well, you're gonna want to see this for yourself.”

“No one's being attacked by flesh-eating nano-parasites, are they?”

“Flesh-eating -- what? No, just take a look, you'll see.”

Fitz clasped his hands behind his head and watched as Mac lay down on the creeper board and rolled underneath the Jeep. 

“Oh my god. Oh my _god_. I don't believe it,” he said from beneath the undercarriage before rolling back out to look up at Fitz with a stunned look on his face. “The bots. They've done a complete 180. They've gone from eating away at the metal to _repairing_ it.”

Fitz gave a relieved laugh. “They what?”

“We've got a swarm of nano-bots working in unison to systematically probe for weak spots and refortify them. If anything, in a couple of hours, this thing's not just gonna be good as new -- it's gonna be _better_ than new.” He jumped up to his feet. “Fitz, you did it! Whatever you did, it worked!”

Fitz glazed over with a look of pure shock. “I did it...I _did_ it!” He hopped up and down, then leapt forward and threw his arms around Mac in a tight embrace. “I did it! I made it work!”

Mac laughed and hugged him back. “You really did. This was all you, 100 percent.”

Almost instantly, Fitz released his hold on Mac and stepped back, looking down with a flush to his cheeks that wasn't there before. “Yes, well...anyway. I'm glad I could, ahhh...glad I...glad I could...I could...”

“Me too,” said Mac. “Me too. Now why don't you get back in that lab, see what other miracles you can whip up?”

“Yeah,” he replied, looking down with a half-smile as he turned to leave. “Yeah, I think...I think...I'll do that.”

Mac sighed as he watched him disappear back up the ramp. He'd spend every night for the next week falling asleep thinking about how it felt to have Fitz in his arms.

*

For once, Mac was glad that the team was going to be holed up in headquarters for a day or two.

Not that he didn't like having them around, nor did he like the thought of any of them ever being in danger. But there was no way around it -- when the house was full of agents, he and Fitz had to be _on_. Mac in his garage. Fitz in his lab. It was what they were there to do, and while he made sure that their paths crossed as often as possible -- he consulted with Fitz on more mechanical engineering questions than he needed to, that's for sure -- their demanding work schedules made it difficult sometimes to find excuses to hang out.

In a way, he felt selfish for thinking in those terms. Did Fitz even like spending time with him that much? The guy could clam up so efficiently when he wanted to, it was hard to tell -- not to mention that worried look he wore so often. Mac found it easy to convince himself that he was burdening Fitz with his constant company, and so he resolved to do something _especially_ nice for him.

He was going to need backup for that.

And he knew just where to find her.

“Skye,” he asked, sitting down across the kitchen's breakfast bar from her, “got a minute?”

“For you, Mac, I've got five.” She leaned back to grab a fork from the dish drying rack behind her, which she slid across the table. “You've gotta help me with this cheesecake, though. And if May asks, you've gotta tell her that Koenig accidentally threw it out, and not that we ate the entire thing.”

He laughed and dug a massive forkful out of the dessert on the table between them. It was half gone already, and the girl hadn't even cut it into slices. “I'll take that deal. Look, I've gotta ask you about Fitz.”

Skye's eyebrows shot up as she leaned her head forward. “Ahhhh, I see how it is. Well, my friend, _you_ came to the right place. Word on the street is you two have gotten pretty friendly.”

Mac tried and failed to not blush. “What? I mean, it's not what you think...Fitz and I...”

The smile disappeared from Skye's face. “Oh, my gosh, when I said friendly, I really just meant friendly, not... _friendly_.”

Mac conspicuously looked away.

“Wait, did _you_ mean... _friendly_? Because if you thought that's what _I_ meant, then...do you...okay, obviously May and I haven't gotten to lessons in advanced interrogation. How about we back up about three or four sentences, and this time, _you_ tell _me_ what you two are.”

“We're friends,” he said without hesitation, looking her in the eye. “That's all.”

“Okay. But, I mean, just out of curiosity...would you ever...you and Fitz? I don't know what you...well, it's never come up, and I don't like to make assumptions, but...”

Mac held up his hand to cut her off as she took an enormous bite of cheesecake. “It's okay. It's never come up because it hasn't needed to. But if you're asking if I'd be...interested in Fitz, then the answer is yes. Of course I would.”

Skye's face lit up, which made things officially embarrassing. “Oh my god,” she said as though Mac had somehow transformed into a basket of Labrador puppies, “I'm so happy. That's amazing.”

“Anyway,” Mac said forcefully, desperate to change the tone this conversation was taking, “ _that's_ not what I'm asking about. I mean, not really.”

“No, yes, of course. What is it? What can I do? I want this to happen. How can I help you make this happen.”

He glared and pursed his lips back at her.

“Okay, message received. No matchmaking. Bad Skye. But whatever you need to know, I swear, I'm your girl.”

Mac breathed a sigh of relief. “Alright. Well, I appreciate that. Just like I'd appreciate if this stayed between us?”

Skye nodded. “Of courth,” she replied through a mouthful of food.

“Well, the other night, Fitz mentioned that he could really go for this special sandwich, with prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella? And I offered to make him one, but he said nobody knows how to do it just right. Something about the pesto aoili ratio. Figured if anyone could help me figure out how to make one the right way, though, it'd be you.”

Skye cast her eyes down and away. “Ah. That.”

“I'm sorry, did I say something wrong? I just thought...”

“No, no, it's not that at all! It's just, his...friend used to make him those. And she...”

“ _She_.”

“It wasn't like that. But they were close -- really close. And she...she was with him on that bad mission. And then not too long after that, she left.”

“I get it. I probably should leave that one alone, then. Don't want to stir up any bad memories.” He idly dug at the cheesecake with his fork, dejected.

Skye sat up straight. “No,” she said, pointing across the table at Mac. “No, that's not true. Maybe this is just what Fitz needs.”

“A sandwich that'll remind him of his ex?”

“I told you, it wasn't like that. And what he needs is a -- is someone like you. Now get up,” she said, springing from her stool. “I'm gonna go chug some Pepto, and then you and I are going to make the best goddamn prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich the world has ever seen.”

*

16 baguettes, a few pounds of cheese, a few _more_ pounds of prosciutto, and oh-so-many hints of pesto aoili later, Skye and Mac stood before a platter of sandwiches big enough to feed the entire staff of The Playground.

“I can't believe we made this much food,” she said, panting and wiping the sweat from her brow.

“Didn't want him to think it was just for him. Make it seem weird.”

“Oh yeah, this is definitely less weird.”

Mac surveyed the scene -- the ceiling splattered with aoili, the blenders caked with green pesto. The garbage can overflowing with plastic deli baggies. A serrated bread knife sticking out of the wall. Christ, the sandwich only _had_ three ingredients.

So maybe they'd gone a little overboard.

“I thought you were the one with the culinary skills,” said Mac.

“Me? I used to live in a _car_. I mean, a van, but still.”

“We should probably start handing these out before anyone catches us at the scene of the crime.”

“Agreed.”

Mac lifted the enormous platter -- he was probably the only person in the building who could have made the Herculean effort -- and the two spent the next 20 minutes making their way through every nook and cranny of The Playground delivering dozens of sandwiches. They hit the garage, the firing range, the fitness center, the biochem lab, the nanotech lab, and finally, the mechanical engineering lab, where they had to deliver the last sandwich to the only person left.

Skye gave Mac a gentle punch on the arm. “Go get 'em, tiger.”

“You're not coming with me?”

“Kitchen needs to be cleaned,” she said, backing away. “Gotta scrub, gotta do dishes, oh boy, nothing I can do, look at the time...” And she was gone.

Mac took a breath and looked down at the sandwich. After briefly considering it, he took out the mini Scottish flag on a toothpick he'd stuck into it, and pocketed it. Probably a little much.

When he passed through the door to the lab, Fitz looked up and met his eyes immediately with a smile.

“Mac! To what do I owe the ahhh...the...it's when it's good?”

“The pleasure?”

“Yes! To what do I owe the pleasure? What's that...there?”

“Gotcha your favorite, Turbo. One prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich with just a hint of homemade pesto aoili, here for Mister. Leo. _Fitz_.”

He set the plate down in front of Fitz, who looked blank-faced down at it and then back up at Mac.

Shit. He knew this was a stupid idea. Skye was wrong -- this was drudging up painful memories. He started to take the plate back. “But you know, if you're not hungry or anything --”

Fitz reached out and lightly wrapped his fingers around Mac's forearm, stopping him. “No, actually, I, ahhh...it's just....”

Mac let go, and so did Fitz, who picked up the sandwich and took a tentative bite.

“What's the verdict?” asked Mac. “How'd I do?”

Fitz swallowed. “Thank you,” he murmured, glancing up at Mac for only an instant before setting the sandwich back down and returning his focus to the papers scattered in front of him.

Mac forced a weak half-smile and a nod, turned, and left without a word. He'd help Skye clean the kitchen and take the rest of the afternoon off on account of sudden illness.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

***

Neither Fitz nor Mac brought up the sandwich again -- a feat that was remarkably easy, because for the next week or so, they barely saw each other. 

Every time Mac dropped by the lab for a late-night hangout, Fitz brushed him off by claiming he was too busy. When he went to him for help with an engineering problem -- the type of help he never actually _needed_ \-- Fitz would recommend another scientist. The quiet hours he used to spend by Fitz's side were replaced by time alone in his bunk, poring over science journals that might give him an excuse to strike up a conversation.

Fortunately, it wasn't long before things all went to hell again.

It seemed like only days after meeting the team's latest hired guns, two of them were KIA and the orphaned third had apparently been adopted by Coulson - and since Lance Hunter was the first new agent to join the team since Mac, this put their bunks side by side. Now Mac had not only a crush who was avoiding him and a Quinjet to maintain, but a chatty Englishman next door.

“Knock knock,” said Hunter, leaning in the doorframe to Mac's bunk with a six-pack in one hand and an open drink in the other. “Like a little company? I don't need help with these, but I wouldn't hate it, either.”

Mac lowered his reading glasses, glanced at his watch, and sat up in bed. “Sure, what the hell. Come on in.”

Hunter sat down and dropped the six-pack on the bed between them. “Help yourself, mate. What're you reading in here?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Give here,” Hunter insisted, wresting the magazine from Mac's hands. “Scientific American, eh? I'd have taken you for a fan of Scientific Scotsman, but what do I know, am I right?”

Mac twisted the cap off a bottle in his palm and looked Hunter in the eyes. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, I'm not blind, you know -- also, these aren't twist-off caps.”

Mac continued staring him down while he took a swig.

“Alright, not my business. Just trying to make conversation, you know. Didn't mean to go touchin' a nerve.”

Mac softened with a grin. “Don't know what you're talking about. How are you, though? Doing alright with the transition?”

“Transition?”

“Into being a full-time agent. Seems like you're sticking around for a while.”

Hunter pulled the mouth of the bottle from his lips and laughed. “Dunno about that, mate. Much prefer to keep my options open.”

“Don't you like the idea of staying?”

“It's not that I _dislike_ it, see, it's just that I'm not used to it. I tried staying put once, didn't take. Granted, it's hard to _want_ to stay put when you're being continuously and methodically driven into madness by a woman sent to Earth by the devil himself _specifically for that purpose_ , but still.”

“Sounds rough,” Mac said with a laugh. “Worst I ever had to deal with with an ex was pretending to be something I'm not. Ever been in a situation like that? Pretending to like things I didn't like, wear things I didn't wanna wear. Went vegetarian for a year. You ever eat a quinoa burger? _Woof_.”

“Dunno, mate, I can believe that's the worst you ever had to deal with. Sounds bloody awful.”

Mac nodded and took a drink.

“And I'll bet once you got out of that nasty little situation, you felt better than you'd ever felt before, yeah? That's what I'm talking about. Don't want to risk being held down in a bad situation ever again.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Mac said, “this right here isn't a bad situation at all. In fact, I'd say it's one of the best situations you could ever hope to be held down in.”

“Eh, you might be right,” Hunter replied, opening another bottle. “People seem okay, so far. May's a bit...yeah. Triplett, he's not bad. Younger one, though, Skye, like her alright. Bit of a motor mouth, though, reminds me of my ex. Always got a smart comment. That's not a bad thing, mind you, so long as it's not at your expense.”

Mac laughed. “Yeah, she's not nearly as reserved and dignified as you.”

“Oi! Manners! I've been through a trauma recently, you know. Besides, you know what I mean. Somethin' a bit exciting about throwin' barbs back and forth, yeah? The type that's always runnin' their mouth about this or that? Becomes a pain in the arse, eventually, but still, there's something to be said for the ones with the sharp tongues.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I dunno. Sometimes it's nice to have someone you can just be quiet with, too.”

“Well, I guess that's my cue...”

“No! No, not at all, sit down. It's more like, some people, you can talk to all night long, and that's great. And other times, you can also just sit there together and just be. And that's great too. Not better or worse. Just...different.”

“You wouldn't be talking about anyone in particular, then, would you?”

Mac sighed. “You ever meet someone who just makes you feel more like yourself? Makes you feel like even with a lifetime of mistakes behind you, you're capable of making the right choices?”

“Sure, my old lady did for a bit, before she quite literally ripped my heart from my chest and lit it on fire whilst stomping it to pieces.”

Mac took a drink.

“But hey, bad example. I mean, look at me, I'm an absolute tit, for chrissakes. I had it coming, you know, in fact, I'm really quite a piece of shit, once you get to know me.”

“All I mean is, I've been around enough people who I always had to be 'on' with. Always felt like I was hiding something. Like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. You find someone who makes you feel secure? _That's_ special.”

“Well then,” Hunter added, raising his bottle, “here's to the special ones.”

Mac clinked his bottle and took a swig. “You know, Hunter, you're not _that_ big of a piece of shit. And for the record, I wouldn't hate it if you stuck around a while.”

Hunter stood and took what was left of his beers. “Well, with that ringing endorsement, I'm going to go see just how much trouble I can manage to get into elsewhere. Think Skye would see the humor in it if I replaced the filling in her Oreos with toothpaste?”

Mac winced.

“Yeah, thought not. S'pose that's what I'll be doing, then. And you,” he added with a rap on the doorframe, “quit sulkin' about your bunk like it's your first night at boarding school and go find someone to be quiet _with_.”

*

He hadn't thought to check the roof at first.

It wasn't until after looking in the lab, the garage, the TV room, and the Bus that Mac remembered Fitz saying something about how he liked going up to the top of The Playground for fresh air. If he didn't know better, he'd have taken the guy for something of a claustrophobic. 

And lo and behold, there he was with his back to the door Mac came out of, stargazing in one lounge chair with an empty one beside him. He was talking to himself again, occasionally tilting his head to look over at the other chair. Mac briefly considered leaving him to his own devices, but then, he'd been doing that for some time, and sure as hell didn't have anything to show for it.

“Mind if I join you,” he asked, taking the empty seat and leaning back to look up at the night sky.

Fitz hesitated a moment, like he'd been awoken from a daze. “No, I don't...help yourself, I mean.”

“Listen, Fitz, I've been meaning to talk to you about something.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You're sorry?” he asked, rolling over onto his side to face Fitz. “I just got here, what are you sorry for?”

“I'm sorry, a few weeks ago...I ahhh, I'm afraid I was a bit...not polite, but the other one.”

“Rude?”

“Yes. Rude, thank you, rude, I was a bit rude to you. You made me that sandwich, and I wasn't very, what is it, it's...I wasn't very grateful. And I'm sorry. I've been a bit rude since, actually.”

“You didn't do anything wrong. And I sure hope you haven't been beating yourself up about it all this time.”

Fitz idly fidgeted with this fingers. “I just...my friend used to do things like that for me. And she's gone, now. She left. When I got...since I've been like this. She left.”

“I've heard something about that. I'm sorry if I brought up some bad memories. I didn't mean to remind you of something painful.”

Fitz rolled over onto his side to face Mac. “It's not that it reminded me of...my friend. It ahhh...the opposite.”

“It made you forget her?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, a bit. It was perfect, you see. Best I'd ever had, even. And that was, ahhh...it was...when it's not expected?”

“A shock? A surprise?”

“That one. It was a surprise. Because I didn't...ahhh...I didn't think I _could_ forget her. Not even for a second. It's like she's...here with me, a lot of the time.”

“I know that feeling.”

Fitz rolled onto his back. “Not like this, I don't think.” He hesitated. “I don't...I don't want _you_ to leave, too. Like her. I don't want you to _go_ like she did. I know I'm different now, she couldn't stand it, and she _left_ , and I don't...ahhh, I don't...why do you do this? Why do you want to be around me, anyhow?”

He was starting to show the frustrated helplessness that reared its ugly head when people asked him questions he couldn't answer. Mac rolled onto his back to look up at the sky -- the feeling of being watched only made Fitz more self-conscious, he could tell.

“I want to be around you because you're Leo Fitz,” he said. “What other reason could I possibly need?”

Fitz didn't answer. They just lay there, side by side, watching the stars in silence.

*

The next few weeks saw a noticeable change in Fitz -- a sense of relief that he no longer had to worry about finishing the cloaking technology for the Bus, no doubt. And aside from a hiccup or two along the way, like an unauthorized trip into the vaults he refused to elaborate on, and an explosive mission in Miami, Fitz actually seemed to be finding his footing in the team.

Mac couldn't help being pleased with the change. Not that he minded keeping Fitz all to himself, but he knew it was better for him to spend more time with the other agents. Even Hunter, as obnoxious as he could be, was taking the time to reach out to him (usually literally, with beers). People were talking to Fitz (and _not_ talking to him) in the ways he needed, and the fact that they cared enough to do it seemed to make a real impact on his demeanor.

That, and he seemed to be paying more attention to Mac than ever.

Mac tried not to dwell on it too much, lest he start just seeing the things he wanted to see, but there was more than one occasion on which he'd caught Fitz stealing glances from across the room. That was a hard thing to misinterpret, right? He hoped so, anyway -- every time it happened, it put him squarely on cloud nine for the rest of the day. You don't get to 6'3” and 275 lbs. of pure muscle without getting used to the occasional stare, but this? This would never get old.

He wasn't the only one who noticed, of course -- ordinary workplace hazard when all your colleagues are spies and mercenaries, apparently. Before long, it seemed like every time he turned away from glancing at Fitz, he locked eyes with Skye, who'd greet him with an exaggerated wink, or Hunter, who'd roll his eyes and sigh. Fortunately, he could usually stick his head under the hood of something before anyone saw how badly he was blushing -- but that wasn't _always_ an option.

“Whatcha guys up to,” asked Skye one night as she barged in on Fitz and Mac squaring off in a round of Halo. “Playing games? Move over, I wanna watch.”

She plopped down on the couch next to Mac, forcing him to scooch closer to Fitz, who didn't scooch away -- which was good, because soon Hunter was leaping over the back of the couch to sit on the end opposite Skye, squeezing the men in the middle close enough that Fitz was nearly in Mac's lap.

Which right about then would have made something terribly embarrassing happen.

“Who's winning,” asked Hunter, taking a swig of beer. “My money's on Fitz. Guy's got nerves of steel, he does.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Mac with an accusatory side-eye. “I thought neighbors were supposed to stick together.”

“Tell you what, mate, maybe when _you_ assist me in preventing the Bus from self-destructing, I'll root for _you_.”

Fitz smiled. “I, I, _I_ assisted _you_ , is it? Is that what ahhh...is that what happened? Because, because as I remember, I remember it a bit...a bit...not like that.”

“Well,” Hunter added with another swig, “you're obviously drunk.”

Skye leaned forward in her seat. “Well, if you ask me --”

“No one asked you, mate.”

“ _If you ask me_ , I'm betting on Mac. Mac Attack here always gets his man.”

Mac felt the blood rush to his face and silently prayed that Fitz didn't notice. This girl would be the death of him. “Well thank _you_ , Skye. Although I'm pretty sure we agreed that 'Mac Attack' wasn't gonna become a thing.”

“It's a thing.”

“Yeah,” added Hunter, “it's a thing. We voted.”

Fitz laughed. “I voted for Mac Attack.”

Mac leaned into him. “Traitor.” He could feel Hunter and Skye practically burning holes in him with their eyes, but he didn't care. He was too content for that.

“Mac doesn't like to...to ahhh, when it's, when you confess something...”

“Admit?”

“Yes, thank you, admit. Mac doesn't like to admit that I'm...when you...when you're winning?”

“Beating,” asked Skye.

“No, not beating. But I do! I beat him. No, but when, when it's worse than beating someone. When you're on top?”

Hunter perked up. “Dominating! You're _dominating_ Mac!”

“Yes, that's it! He doesn't like to admit when I'm dominating him.”

Skye was trying to hard not to laugh that her face went into convulsions. A tear rolled down Hunter's cheek. Mac swore to himself he'd kill them both. 

“Yeah,” he said stone-faced, “I don't like to admit when I'm being dominated. But Turbo here's got some moves.”

“Clearly,” Hunter eked out while barely containing a giggle.

Thankfully, May appeared in the doorway before Skye had an opportunity to weigh in.

“Hunter, Skye, you're needed. Last-minute mission and time is a factor. We're out in five, and Hunter, you need to be presentable.”

Mac paused the game. “Agent May, anything we can help with?”

“Not today, Mac Attack. You and Fitz can stay here. Skye and Hunter are coming with me and Coulson. He's got a date with our friend in the flower dress.”

“What, _Raina_?” Skye asked. “You can't be serious.”

“I'll brief you on the way. Four and a half minutes.” May turned and left, followed closely by Skye and Hunter, who raised his bottle to Mac on his way out the door. 

Even with the game still going, the room suddenly seemed so quiet -- and though they weren't being forced into each other anymore, Mac and Fitz were still pressed together, the skin of their arms and legs touching.

“You can scoot down,” Mac suggested, “if you want some space. I guess they're gone for awhile.”

“Yeah, I know.” He stayed put. Mac kept his eyes on the screen and gulped.

Fitz paused the game. “Actually, no. No, I just...I can't do this anymore, Mac. I'm sorry.” He sounded short of breath. Anxious.

Great. This must be where he finally says that he doesn't want to hang out anymore.

“Do what?”

“I can't just...I can't...when you lie.”

“Deceive? Pretend?”

Fitz pointed his finger in the air. He still wasn't looking at Mac. “Pretend. Mac, I can't pretend. I can't do it. I'm not Ward, I'm not May, I can't keep...secrets. I can't. This is fun. But I can't.”

Mac scooched away from Fitz so he could turn to look at him. The scientist looked nervous like only he could. “Fitz, what's wrong. Look, whatever it is, you know that if there's one person in the world you can tell the truth to, it's me.”

“I do...I do know that.” He finally turned and met Mac's eyes. “I know. And I don't...I still don't know why. I don't know why you _like_ this. Is it because you feel...you feel, ahhh...sorry for me? Is that it?”

Mac smiled warmly. “Of course not.”

“Because the others do. I know they do. They know I'm different, Mac. I'm not _me_ anymore. I'm not as _good_.”

“Look, Fitz, obviously I never knew you before...before whatever happened out there. But I refuse to believe you ever could have been better than you are since I've known you.”

Fitz looked away, frustrated. “See? _See_? You say these things. Like that. And I just...I don't...I don't _deserve_ it.”

“Yes, you _do_.”

“I don't deserve _you_ , Mac. I'm not _good enough_. I'm _damaged_.”

“Fitz, what do you --”

“I _like_ you, Mac! Okay? I like you a lot! A lot... _a lot_.” He turned toward him, staring down at his own lap. “I like you. And I tried not to. I tried to...ahhh, _dammit_ , when you're against it, when you're working against it?”

“Fighting?”

“Yes! Jesus, I try to fight it, until my subconscious is literally telling me that I can't ignore it anymore, and I can't, I can't fight it, and I feel so _stupid_ for it. I'm sorry. God, Mac, I'm so...I'm so...I'm just sorry.”

“Fitz, I --”

“And if you don't, ahhh, if you don't want to be friends, you know, if it's...if it's ahhh, if it's _weird_ , I get it --”

“Fitz, now --”

“And I mean, if I've been short with you ever, it's just because...because, ahhh --”

“Fitz, I'm serious, you can stop --”

“And you're just, you've always been, you've been so good to me, and I just --”

Mac put a hand on either side of Fitz's face, closed his eyes, and pulled him in for a kiss.

Had to shut him up somehow.

He'd only meant to keep his lips too busy to talk, but before he knew it, Fitz was climbing into his lap, draping his arms over his shoulders, and parting his lips to invite Mac's tongue.

Mac placed his hands on Fitz's sides while Fitz shifted his weight to pin him down flat on his back, straddling him.

“Mmmm,” Mac tried to get out while Fitz bit down on his bottom lip, “we should --”

“They'll be gone for hours.”

“But what if --”

“Mac,” Fitz said sitting up to unbutton his shirt, “don't you ever...don't you, ahhh, don't you ever...”

“Shut up,” he asked with a grin, tossing Fitz's shirt across the room.

“Shut up.” He took one of Mac's hands in each of his, holding them down above his head while he went to work exploring his neck with his tongue. Mac moaned, and Fitz pressed his lips against his ear. “I said shut up,” he whispered before clamping down on his ear lobe with his teeth and sucking.

“That's gonna be hard,” he said.

Fitz let go of one hand to reach down and grab Mac through his jeans. “You have no idea.”

*

Fitz had been wrong about one thing -- Mac was perfectly fine being dominated by him. It had to have been two merciless hours before Fitz finally granted him any relief, and only after demonstrating that the hands disciplined enough to engineer robots the size of a poppy seed were fiendishly skilled at all kinds of manipulation. And laying there on the floor of the TV room, breathless and sweaty, their limbs intertwined while Fitz lightly traced the contours of Mac's chest with his fingertips and cooed, it seemed for the first time in a while that nothing could possible go wrong.

***

Mac had figured that the few days after his tryst with Fitz might be tricky to navigate. They might have to be discreet at first, fill out some paperwork with HR, break the news to Coulson. It'd be a little weird, maybe, but not catastrophic.

Turned out, things were trickier to navigate than he expected.

That'll happen, apparently, when suddenly you're living under the same roof as your boyfriend's former would-have-been-but-never-really-was ex.

He'd been thrilled to see Bobbi back at The Playground -- even though it surely meant he'd be dealing with more late-night angst from his bunk neighbor -- but he didn't realize at first that she'd brought someone back with her. 

Jemma.

He hadn't even known what she looked like, before.

And there she was, in the lab, talking to Fitz.

Mac hadn't seen him look so upset since the day he first saw him, sitting alone in that same room and talking to himself. He was watching them talk through the window to the lab, trying not to be seen, when Hunter appeared beside him, still in his tailored suit.

“Invasion of the exes, right, mate?”

“Nah,” said Mac, still watching. “They weren't like that.”

“Maybe not. But she's back then, isn't she? Better watch out, is all. Might complicate things a bit. Christ, what happened to your neck? Is that --”

“So. Bobbi, huh?”

“Bobbi.” Hunter unscrewed the cap from a flask, took a slug, and passed it to Mac. “Bit crowded in here, yeah?”

Mac nodded and took a drink.

“What say you and I go up on the roof, get pissed, and hit golf balls into the train yard until Koenig has an aneurysm?”

Mac nodded again, took one last look through the lab window, and followed Hunter down the hallway and up the stairs.

*  
“You can't hide forever, you know,” said Skye.

Mac had spent the past week in the subterranean storage houses, sorting through hundreds of wooden crates, clipboard in hand.

“I'm not hiding. I happen to _like_ taking inventory.”

She didn't reply -- just raised her eyebrows at him with an accusatory, _I-can't-believe-you-would-even-try-that-line_ look.

“Fine,” he replied with a sigh. “I might be hiding. But just a little bit.”

Skye hopped up to sit on the edge of an oversized crate labeled _SSR - Do Not Remove_. “Which one?”

“Which one what?”

“Which one ya hiding from? Fitz, or...”

“Or her?” He rubbed his eyes and jumped up to sit next to her, making the old, unfinished wood creak beneath their combined weight. “Both, I guess. Fitz barely wants to talk. And it seems like that's all she ever wants to do. With me, anyway. And I'm kind of not in the mood for that.”

“I feel you. No shortage of weirdness in my life, right now, either. Lots of family drama, mostly. Still trying to wrap my head around this ScienceBird business, too,” She sighed. “Too bad you weren't around _last_ year. Simpler times, man.”

“Weren't you shot twice?”

“Not a bad point,” she said with a grimace. “But still, what are we going to do about _you_ , Mac Attack?”

“We are not going to do anything. _I_ , however, am going to continue spending my free time covering Hunter's inventory.”

“Until?”

“I suppose I can retire in about 30 years.”

Skye put her arm around Mac and pulled him in close to her side, resting her head on his shoulder. “Come here, ya big lug. Everything'll be okay.”

“Skye?”

“Yeah?”

“What's a ScienceBird?”

“Don't worry about it.”

*

Mac was on his back underneath the Quinjet, thinking about how badly he wished he had some nano-parasites to lend a hand, when he felt a familiar tap on his foot. With a grin on his face he wheeled himself out, glad for an afternoon interruption courtesy of...

...Jemma Simmons. Smiling down at him with a cup of tea in each hand.

“Agent Simmons, hey, this isn't a great --”

“Nonsense,” she said with a cloyingly sweet lilt to her voice. “And please, for the hundredth time, you can call me Jemma. I've called in a favor or two and gotten your schedule cleared for the afternoon, and I'd _love_ it if we could spend that time getting to know each other a little better.”

He stood up, towering over her even more than he towered over most people. “Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the gesture, but --”

“Oh Mac, don't you see?” she said through her teeth without losing her smile. “I know when I'm being avoided. I know when I'm being _lied_ to. You've barely said a word to me since I came back.” She took a step toward him -- their toes were practically touching. She was looking damn near straight up to maintain eye contact. “And you know what else? I've seen some shit, _Alphonso Mackenzie_. And if you think you're going to continue brushing me off like some silly little schoolgirl, you've got another thing coming.”

He looked nervously from side to side and swallowed.

“Now, _Mac_ , you're going to take this tea I prepared for you. It's chamomile, your favorite. You've never told anyone that, not even Fitz. Want to know how I know it's your favorite?”

He stared down at her wide-eyed and gave a tiny nod. She stood up on her tiptoes.

“I _bet_ you _do_. Now take it, and you and I are going to have a lovely conversation.”

He took the Grumpy Cat mug from her hand. She gave him a tight-lipped smile, turned, and walked up the ramp out of the garage.

Bobbi wasn't kidding about how Hydra can toughen a person up.

*

Mac found Jemma alone at the table in the empty kitchen. She was cradling her tea in both hands with a sad look on her face, but put on a false smile to look at him as he sat down across from her.

“Sorry for putting on such a show back there. That's not really my style...”

He was too nervous to say anything back.

“It's just...it's been days since you and I spoke...about Fitz. Since you told me I made him worse? Since I told you that's why I left? Bobbi's encouraged me to be more assertive, but frankly, it's an exhausting practice. I just wanted another opportunity to explain myself.”

He looked down at the table and nodded. Since she'd come back, Fitz had regressed by weeks -- months, even. All the confidence he'd gained, all the improvements to his speech, it all just dissolved almost overnight. He could barely get the guy to talk to him for more than a few minutes at a time, let alone -- well, any of the other stuff.

“Well, you weren't wrong. I _have_ been avoiding you, especially since the other day...I didn't mean to hit you with a hard truth,” Mac said. “But --”

“No, I know. You know that I think you're right, too. But imagine that you're me, Mac. Imagine that you've been replaced, like an old part from one of your engines.”

“I wouldn't say that you've been _replaced_.”

She gave him a sad, knowing smile. “I told you, I know when I'm being lied to. And I _know_ when I've been _replaced_. Fitz and I have known each other for _years_. I'm not sure either of us would have survived Academy if not for the other, to be honest. We'd have gone mad.”

“And now?”

“And _now_...Fitz doesn't need me anymore. I'm not sure he even _wants_ me anymore. Not _wants me_ wants me, mind you, but...it's like he doesn't even want me around. Like he wishes I hadn't come back at all. And I just wish I understood why that is. Because I still value his friendship...and I miss it.”

Mac couldn't argue with that. Fitz usually focused his frustration on himself, but over the past week or so, he'd caught him lashing out at Jemma on more than one occasion. It wasn't like him.

He hadn't expected to, but he suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of pity for Jemma Simmons.

“I think he's caught in a bad situation, Jemma, and I think whatever's going on, it's that situation's fault, not yours. You were gone for months, and it destroyed him. He blamed himself. And just when he'd finally found a way to put it in his past...”

“I know.” She sighed. “And I hope _you_ know that I'm not a threat. To the two of you. You're all he talks about...when he's willing to talk to me at all.”

Mac felt a twinge of guilt for finding some comfort in that.

“The way he feels about you...I'll admit, that's a side of him I didn't know about. But then, I'm not sure it's a side of him _he_ knew about, until recently. But he's quite taken with you. I haven't seen him this excited about anything since the jungles episode of _Planet Earth_.” 

“The monkeys.”

“The monkeys.”

They each took a sip in unison.

“I just don't want there to be any tension between us, Mac,” she added. “Fitz has moved on. He's changed, he doesn't need me anymore. Not like he needs you, anyhow. But that doesn't mean you and I can't get on alright, does it?”

“No, of course not,” he said with a warm smile. “And I don't want you to think that I hate you, Jemma. I know I've been avoiding you, and for that, I'm sorry. I just...I was just nervous about what you coming back might mean. I was nervous I'd lose him. To you.”

“Well, I don't think you need to be. Once you go Mac, it seems, you never --”

“Nope,” he said with a laugh. “Nope, we're not gonna say that, and you just thank god that Skye wasn't around to hear you say it, or it would never die.”

She laughed. “That's true. You should hear the latest nickname portmanteau she's cooked up for me and Bobbi.”

“You and Bobbi have a nickname?”

“Well,” she said looking away and taking a sip of her tea, “let's just say Fitz isn't the only one who's changed lately.”

*

That night, Mac finally decided that if Jemma could put on a brave enough face to sit him down and talk to him, the least he could do was the same for Fitz.

That, and he was really sick of doing Hunter's inventory.

He wasn't sure where he'd find him, but he knew where he wanted to, so before checking anyplace else, he climbed the stairs to the roof and poked his head out the door into the cool night air.

There was Fitz, in what had become one of their favorite spots to spend their evenings -- a place he hadn't been since the night Jemma came back. Since the first time they'd stargazed together, the two had strung paper lanterns from the old, obsolete antennas and chimneys, bathing the entire rooftop in a soft, warm glow. 

Mac came up from behind and took his usual seat next to Fitz, who didn't look over. “Want some company?”

“I guess,” he mumbled.

“Look, Fitz, I know things haven't been the same between us since...well. And if you're feeling weird about things, or you don't want to be like that anymore, I get it. I can be okay with it. But what I can't be okay with is you shutting me out.”

Fitz didn't say anything.

“I miss you, Fitz. And...and Jemma misses you, too.”

Fitz looked over at him with a concerned expression. “You've been...been...you've, ahhh, been talking to...to Jemma?”

He nodded.

“That's what...what I was worried about. I wish you hadn't. I wish that didn't happen.”

“Why, Fitz? What are you so afraid of?”

“It's just...it's, it's....ahhh, it's...” He squinted his eyes hard.

“Just try to relax. Take your time.”

“It's...it's...embarrassing. It's embarrassing, Mac.”

“What on Earth do you have to be embarrassed about?”

“About me...about myself. I just...I used to, used to have...I used to like Jemma, a bit. Right? And she left, and I thought I'd never be okay again...and in some ways, I never will be. I know that. I've come to...to, ahhh...to terms with it. I put her...I put her in...not the future, but the other one?”

“The past?”

“The past. I put her in the past. And I thought she'd stay there, and you...you believed in me. And you...with the, it's like hearing, but...listening. You _listened_ to me. And I...I...fell for you.”

Mac smiled sweetly at the sound of those words.

“And it seemed like you...you liked me, too, and then she...and she...I thought she'd ruin it. I, ahhh...I resented her coming back. Because I thought she'd ruin it.”

“Fitz...”

“Because she'd make you uncomfortable, right? Because she'd remind you of...of who I used to be, before you. Before all this. Because her being around would make you...make you feel like, like, like you're...when it's, you're not coming first?”

“You thought that she'd make me feel like I came in second place.”

Fitz nodded.

“And that I wouldn't want to do this anymore. Because she would remind me of whoever you used to be, at a different time in your life.”

He nodded again.

“You think the fact that you've been through something terrible -- something that changed you -- could possibly make me love you any less?” He realized immediately what he'd allowed himself to say, but didn't let his blushing stop him. “Fitz, I get that you're embarrassed by the things that have happened to you. And I can believe that having a literal living, breathing reminder of those things around can be frustrating. But it doesn't even come close to changing my feelings about you.”

“I just....I just wish...I wish you'd met me at a different time, maybe. A different time in my life, when I'm not so...so...not simple, but?”

Mac smiled. “Complicated?”

“Complicated,” he replied with a sigh. “It's so easy for me to...to...for me to love you. And I really do. But I don't...I don't understand why you feel the same way when I'm...when I'm like this. I used to be better...and maybe I'll be better in the future, too...I could be so much better. For you.”

“You couldn't possibly be better for me than you are right now,” said Mac, looking into his eyes. “And for the record, Fitz, I'm lucky as hell to have met you right when I did. Whoever you used to be, that's not the Fitz I met, and it's not the one I fell for. It's the one you are _now_. And everything you've been through, everything about the past that you might be embarrassed about? Those things all made you the Fitz you are right now.”

“Are you saying I should be...ahhh, should be, should be grateful? Then?”

Mac held out an open palm in the space between their chairs. “I'm saying _I'm_ grateful. Not for the pain that anything in your life has caused you, but for who you are today. For the fact that you're here. And for having the privilege of knowing you at all.”

Fitz looked down at the hand held out between them and reached out to take it, interlacing their fingers and taking a deep breath.

“Mac?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm glad I'm here, too.”

Without another word, they lay back, hands intertwined, eyes on the clear, starry sky overhead. However they'd gotten there, they both knew they were right where they needed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> My very first fic. (Ever.) Be gentle, dear readers.


End file.
